The short stories of Valeria Parrella collected in For Grace Received are luminous and  powerful, lined with steel, fired with energy, and pulsing with life.  The grace she writes about is the grace that occurs in the mix of vulnerability and superlativity, in that place where the daily meets the extraordinary.  Her characters are from all walk of life in Naples, drug dealer, print shop worker, gallery curator, and university graduate working in a book store.  What they share is the desire to break out of their conscripted box of duties and expectations and reach up into the universe of possibility, finding new delight in, or needed relief from, their existence.

Parella writes beautifully (my highest regards for the translator, Antony Shugaar), with a precision that is not taut, but is free and encompassing, highly accurate and genuine.  She gets the particular moments of life just right: preparing an apartment for a lover, walking to meet an aging mother who waits and watches from her balcony, a whole family showing up to work the presses for a big order, reading with a child, feeling the caress of a new love.  There is a wonderful scene where a woman is surrendering to the kisses of a man, and scenes from Naples float across her vision, accompanying her growing desire and overcoming her instinct to say “no” and remain safe and alone. Previously in the story, Naples threatened, irritated, and disappointed; now she is seduced by that wondrous city, and perhaps saved.

Parella captures the essence of what it is like to be a woman, the twisting and sometimes choking, sometimes saving, lines of compassion, desperation, and joy that encircle us.  In “Run” she describes with acute and piercing precision the pain of losing control over a child, of missing him and needing him; of trying to do the best that you can, but failing.  When the mother Anna steps in to protect her son, setting a meddling and mistaken nun straight, I cheered her on; when Anna was released from prison, I sighed with relief; and I felt a deep satisfaction when she finally was rewarded for her tenacity, her grit, and her lack of complicity in the game made by men, a game she could only lose.  In the end, she triumphs, quietly and for the sake of her son, and I was moved to tears.

There are four stories in For Grace Received, all very different in plot and character and tone, yet each one breathtaking and original, fresh and strong.Parrella writes stories that are profoundly composed, and with grace delivered.

For Grace Received was translated by Antony Shugaar.